When we think about college, we often think about a fairytale experience of walking into your dorm room for the first time and absolutely friendship-fall-in-love with the people you are living with. Or these days, finding your best friend on the commit Instagram page for your school.
I did neither of those things. I went random Freshman year. I lived with a lovely girl until Columbus Day Weekend when she moved out to live with some of her friends. We got along fine, but were never really friends. Then another girl moved in and we became really great friends (and still are!).
When the question of sophomore living came up, me and my friend group obviously decided to room together. One of our friends was a Resident Assistant, so we decided to go into a few triples on her floor. Me and my two best friends at the time decided to room together. It seemed awesome, we all sat on the quad when we picked the room. There were Pinterest boards made, matching throw pillows bought and excitement to be had.
Move-In was a dream. I moved in a week before them because I was running a pre-orientation program for freshmen. I set up my side, then one of my roommates came a few days later, then my third roommate the next. It seemed like everything was working out, we found our rhythm, we hung out, everything was going well.
Then there was one night where I got a bad vibe. This was maybe two weeks into school and we were all going to our other friends dorm for a hangout. They mysteriously had other stuff going on while I was getting ready, but showed up totally ready five minutes after me. We had a Spotify Jam happening, everyone was seemingly having fun. When “House Tour” by Sabrina Carpenter (my entry into the jam) came on, one of my roommates decided that we were done listening to music. Whatever, I moved on. The next couple weeks were very distant, no hanging out, not a lot of chit chat in the room, etc.
This is where I should mention that I had a really hard first week-ish of school. A lot was going on with my mental health and my family life that kind of threw me off my game.
It all bubbled up to a big conversation. I brought up my feelings and they brought up theirs. I won’t get into a lot of detail, but it was very clear that there was no way we were going to move past this. The friendship was over, not just with my roommates, but with the whole group of them. Alexa, play “Castle in Hollywood” by Laufey.
It was like everything I imagined for myself as a college student came crashing down around me. It literally became be against the world in a split second. On my rugby team, we have bigs and littles. I called my big and asked if I could go to her house. She wasn’t even in Rhode Island at the time. But I went and I laid in her bed and convinced myself that eventually, somehow, everything will be fine.
Flash forward to now: everything is in fact fine!
I moved out of that room, found new friendships, and realized that I am never too much (and will never lose my much-ness). I cut off or limited relationships that didn’t serve me. If they can’t appreciate me for who I am, then they don’t have to sit at my table.
This is all to say, it’s okay if you don’t want to be friends with them anymore, or if you can’t be friends with them. Just because you are in college doesn’t mean that people don’t change. It is not your fault if you outgrow people, or if you grow and they aren’t ready to accept that. The more important thing is that YOU accept your own growth!